A few years ago on Peebs.net an angry man with hatred in his heart expressed a death wish against Bruce D. Hales. I objected, closely followed by several others, and the Webmaster removed the offending post.
Unfortunately the Brethren appear to have no similar procedure for objecting to equally offensive sentiments when they fall from the lips of the same Bruce D. Hales. His words get duly printed and distributed in ministry books. Could it be that the Brethren don’t see anything wrong with a death wish directed against a member or an ex-member? Surely that can’t be true? Or maybe they secretly disapprove, but dare not challenge anything Bruce D. Hales says, no matter how wicked it may be.
The rat poison ministry was not a slip of the tongue or an isolated lapse of discretion. It was rather similar to the unseemly rant against Steve Jobs, when B. D. Hales was explicitly rejoicing at his death. And it reminded me of reports of Brethren holding special prayer meetings to pray that God will remove wicked persons. This was at a time when Richard Stay and Laurie Moffitt were active in publishing criticisms of the Brethren. If these reports of special prayer meetings were true, they were rather reminiscent of witches incanting a spell to bring about the death of an enemy, and they were about equally unchristian. And then there was the ministry about shooting yourself or hanging yourself if you have been communicating ministry to outsiders. These examples all paint a consistent picture of the lamentable moral state of the Brethren leadership, and the inability of his editors or friends to curb his excesses.
Here is the ministry extract that contains an explicit death wish, rather like an Ayatollah’s fatwa or a tinker’s curse. This one saddened me more than any of the other examples.
Ministry of B. D. Hales Vol. 112 page 190 (Sydney, 18 June 2011)
The Bible and Gospel Trust claims copyright of the above quotation.Of course, if persons leave you and go, well then, you have to consider the whole thing, and say, Well, what more could we have done? And then we can cast them on the Lord, and hope that in His grace He breaks them down in His government, you pray that His government might come in. Better to die than keep on sinning, much better. The quicker you die the better. If you want, some of you young fellows here going on sinning, well, I would say, The quicker you die the better.
. . .
I'm quite serious about that, any young fellows here don't want to give up their sins, well, die, die. We'll all be better off, and you'll be far better off too, because you can't sin after you die,